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Opposed to same-day voter registration

April 27, 2014

HB 105 is not, as claimed by Sen. Marshall, the next step in allowing citizens to register and vote for their candidate. Each citizen has always had that ability, they only need to exercise it.

Sen. Henry correctly notes that "state and municipal elections are much larger in scope and more difficult to manage." (Hmm, what about presidential elections?) She is "confident" that the "training programs needed to make same-day registration work here are doable."

How many additional poll workers will be needed to meet the increased flow of voters? What kind of training will they receive to identify false identification? How will they be able to tell if a person has already voted somewhere else? All unanswered questions.

She claims that investigations in Wisconsin and New Hampshire have shown virtually no voter fraud but she doesn't mention the investigation in North Carolina which identified tens of thousand of cases of questionable votes.

She tells us that while anyone can register and vote, those who are already registered will not be able to change their party affiliation - a "safeguard" to prevent "political mischief-making." If she is concerned about "mischief making" in a primary why isn't she concerned about manipulation during a general election?

She tries to calm our concerns by telling us that some one who registers and votes is standing before an election official and risks being caught committing voter fraud. How? There is no process to insure the honesty of the information.

The senator goes on to claim that voting is not a "privilege."

Privilege: noun - A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

Voting is a special right (a privilege) granted only to the lawful citizens.

Funny how neither of them mentions how a federally compliant photo ID card, readily available to all Delaware residents, should be the sole proof of identification. Delaware is, after all, not Montana or rural Texas where state offices may not be convenient.

The senators also fail to mention that to insure that multi-voting or other "mischief making" does not occur we need a real-time computer system that allows a poll worker to record when each person votes (and where) and immediately flags second attempts or identification anomalies and alerts the poll worker.

Irene Witoski
Harbeson

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